Eleven first-year students of Shaankary Nursing College, owned and operated by D Sanjay – the son of TRS Rajya Sabha member D Srinivas – have accused Sanjay of sexually harassing them. The complaints came to light when the girls and their families approached the Progressive Organisation of Women (POW) in Nizamabad to file a complaint.
On Thursday, POW reached out to the State Home Minister and State Director General of Police to take action against Sanjay. Home Minister Naini Narsimha Reddy has directed DGP Mahender Reddy to accept a formal complaint by the POW and look into the matter. Sanjay is also a former Mayor of Nizamabad city.
These allegations come as reports of Srinivas being forced to exit the TRS are doing the rounds.
The 11 girls and their families will be visiting Kartikeya, Commissioner of Police, Nizamabad, on Friday.
Speaking to TNM, Sandhya, an activist and POW leader, said, “Sanjay is quite notorious and there already are pending sexual harassment cases against him. There are 13 girls in the first year of BSc Nursing at that college in all, and 11 of them approached us at our office and gave a complaint against Sanjay.”
In their complaint, the girls have stated that Sanjay often spoke to them in a sexist and innuendo-loaded manner.
It escalated a week ago, when one of the girls met with an accident and wanted to go back home to recover. But Sanjay didn’t let her. He took her to a room in the college instead and sexually abused her.
They also alleged that Sanjay would often drop in unannounced to their hostel and would demand to meet them. “The 11 girls had to move in and out of three hostels in the past year alone in a bid to stop his visits. Five days ago, he forced the injured girl and her friend come home with him, and he allowed them to leave only late at night,” added Sandhya.
“Once they returned, all 11 of them decided they would leave the college and go back to their villages. But they were worried about their future, as they had written exams and had struggled to get free nursing seats at this educational institution. This is why they approached POW and the Commissioner has assured us action will be taken,” Sandhya added.
The allegations against Sanjay come at a time when his father, D Srinivas, had fallen afoul with the TRS party after his other son, Dharmapuri Aravind, who is a BJP leader, met with the party's National President Amit Shah recently.
TRS MPs and MLAs led by Nizamabad MP K Kavitha even wrote a letter to TRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao to take disciplinary action against Srinivas.
In a four-page letter, the MLAs and MPs accused Srinivas, a former Congress leader, of creating several factions in Nizamabad and sabotaging the party from within. Calling him an ‘opportunist’ for inducting Aravind into the BJP, they accused him of sabotaging the party to ensure his son’s elevation.
D Srinivas, a senior politician from Nizamabad, quit the Congress and joined the TRS in 2015, alleging that his earlier party had sidelined him.